Update to Next.js 14

[BenedictLang]

When upgrading to v14 I see the following things to do:

• react-helmet is probably not necessary anymore due to the new metadata configuration options
• Make sure that the env values in the next config file (and in the parseEnvValue function accordingly) are all strings:

env: {
    // The image directory for open graph images will be saved at the location above
    // with `public` prepended. By default, images will be saved at /public/images/og
    // and available at /images/og. If changing, make sure to update the .gitignore

    OG_IMAGE_DIRECTORY: '/images/og',

    // By default, only render this number of post pages ahead of time, otherwise
    // the rest will be rendered on-demand
    POSTS_PRERENDER_COUNT: '5',

    WORDPRESS_GRAPHQL_ENDPOINT: process.env.WORDPRESS_GRAPHQL_ENDPOINT,
    WORDPRESS_MENU_LOCATION_NAVIGATION: process.env.WORDPRESS_MENU_LOCATION_NAVIGATION || 'PRIMARY',
    WORDPRESS_PLUGIN_SEO: parseEnvValue(process.env.WORDPRESS_PLUGIN_SEO, 'false'),
  },

• Fix TypeError: config.watchOptions.ignored.push is not a function, which occurs from v13.4.9-canary.2 on due to some optimizations
  The reason is, it was an array before, now it is a regex pattern, so the push won’t work anymore in the plugin scripts. I don't know the reason behind excluding those files, but I dont think it would be elegant to overwrite the regex with something own or a regex that excludes the plugin files. For now I just removed the part:

      if (config.watchOptions) {
        config.watchOptions.ignored.push(path.join('**', plugin.outputDirectory, plugin.outputName));
      }

• Remove export script in package.json and set output: 'export' in the next.js config. Exchange fallback: 'blocking' in all slugs and pages in the return with fallback: false, (as boolean, not string) since blocking and output export are incompatible. "False" means only paths during build time are valid, all others are 404s instead of ("true") creating fallback sites dynamicaly, which is what we want in our static build.
• Image optimization needds to be turned off in next.js config (we would need the server for that):

images: {
		// The image optimization needs to be disabled in a static export
		unoptimized: true,
	},

• Accordingly, we need to upgrade the workflow files:
  • Update test for node 20 and 21 or higher, update to pnpm version 9 (make sure it's compatible)
  • remove pnpm export (will be run automatically due to the output setting in next.config.js)

[colbyfayock]

Next.js 14 (and upcoming 15) have two different development paths, the Pages and the App Router

This project was initially developed wit the Pages router which explains the use of React Helment. Next.js eventually maintained a Head component which addressed a lot of the same needs, but I felt the React Helmet API provided more capabilities which is why it remained here. In the App Router however, you're right in that there is a new API, the metdata configuration option, which only pertains to the App Router, which this project isn't yet migrated to

The project isn't currently in TS but yeah that sounds like a good win to start fixing TS issues. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other issues as well

I had started a new PR that migrates this project to App Router but it's not complete. Haven't had time to work through it, but it got decently far with it. hoping to be able to loop back to it soon: #477

this PR would address the watchOptions issue as its no longer part of the project, where instead of needing to hook into the compilation process to automatically trigger builds of static files, the App Router's Route Handler APIs allow an easy way to create static-like files such as an RSS feed and JSON dump of posts which is what the watchOptions feature was providing

i likely won't spend any time working on upgrading this project to a new version using the Pages router and would only spend time pushing forward the App Router PR linked above. likely willing to take a PR to fix some immediate issues though as long as they're not large reworks and small fixes

[BenedictLang]

likely willing to take a PR to fix some immediate issues though as long as they're not large reworks and small fixes

I will collect my necessary changes for the upgrade up here and make a PR in a month👍🏼